What is certain is that nobody except the Kurzel brothers could have successfully made this movie. They were brought up in the under-privileged suburb it depicts, and almost exclusively drew the cast from members of the local community whose lack of acting experience became no obstacle as nothing about the film was an act. Kurzel chose to shoot on faded film stock which gave everything a washed-out, degraded look; yet the situation was handled with an empathy that, in other hands, could easily have become merely exploitative and prurient.

Jed Kurzel’s ominous, insistent music was a fundamental factor in the film’s success. It’s intriguing to discover from this screening that much of the rejected footage featured oppressive studies of persistent rain and leaden skies. The final edit had a parched, arid atmosphere; which the score permeates like sticky humidity.

For the live re-creation, Kurzel led a six piece band switching between synthesiser drones, treated percussion and choppy guitar. It’s an edgy, electric sound whose heavy pulse and cumulative intensity brings to mind the compositions of Louis Andriessen and the industrial metal in vogue at the time the murders took place. It’s heavy, hypnotic and mostly restricted to a single key, indicative of demoralised community that has sunk into the poverty trap with little chance of escape.

Marcel Weber’s accompanying montage of cancelled footage is truly disturbing. Freed from narrative responsibility, the camera dwells for rather too long on images of under-nourished children amusing themselves in joyless playgrounds or hanging listlessly around the estate. Rather creepily, the viewer becomes complicit with the voyeurs and predators the community is determined to expunge. An extended cut of the notorious scene in which a python gobbles a rodent is as gruesome as it sounds. And the images of playful kittens leave a horrible presentiment that in Snowtown, there is almost certainly more than one way to skin a cat.

Another glorious day in Adelaide, and Guardian Australia’s culture team are spending their time in dark, indoor spaces. Today on the liveblog: Windmill Theatre’s Girl Asleep, an interview with Tectonics’ Ilan Volkov, all the best of Womadelaide and the Fringe, plus reviews of Sadeh21, The Seagull and Unsound

Join Guardian Australia's culture team for dancing lessons with Afrobeat's Femi Kuti and Positive Force, and an inspiring chat with the woman who wrote the soundtrack to the Tunisian uprising, Emel Mathlouthi. Plus: the Adelaide fringe runs away to join the circus

Join Alfred Hickling and Bill Code as they make their way through the trees of the Womadelaide festival site in South Australia, crossing paths with English folk star Sam Lee and Japanese funk machines Osaka Monaurail. Plus, hear music from Aussie-Papuan Melanesian beats outfit Airleke, and catch Arrested Development getting their raps on in the festival's Taste the World kitchen